


I don’t want to wake up (to find you’re just some dream I had)

by ShadowsLament



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-18 19:14:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3580818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowsLament/pseuds/ShadowsLament
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry has returned, he’s with Eggsy, as he was meant to be, and yet he lies awake at night, attempting to understand the distance between them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I don’t want to wake up (to find you’re just some dream I had)

Harry glanced from the clock on the bedside table to the thimble Eggsy had pocketed that morning as he stood beside Merlin, waiting, his quick fingers skipping over bolts of wool and tilting spools of thread. Eggsy had gaped at the bit of metal when he rediscovered it, offering it to Harry on his palm.

“Here, then, ‘ave a kiss,” he said with a small, unapproachably sad smile.

The thimble was warm, the scent of Eggsy’s cologne settled faintly on the shining silver. Harry clenched it tightly. “I don’t have an acorn to give you in return.” 

“S’all right,” Eggsy said and shrugged, turning down the covers before slipping into bed.

Harry followed suit without pushing for the kiss he wanted, a real one, as ravenous as his constant need for Eggsy.

Hours later, unable to fall asleep, his thoughts returned to Peter Pan, a favorite of his younger self, if only for the dog and the absurdity of a spoonful of syrup clutched between her bared teeth, an image he’d drawn over and again until graphite became a stubborn dark stain on his palm, the side of his hand. His fondness for the story certainly had nothing to do with some unfathomable desire to remain a child or even childlike. The idea of transformation--growing and changing, of realizing and then surpassing one’s own potential--fascinated him, then as now.

He’d shared that thought with Eggsy, and he’d watched with something more determined than pride battering the inside of his ribs as the young man took up the challenge. A wiser man might have spared a moment to wonder; Harry had never harbored a doubt. It was simply a matter of how much time would pass before Eggsy exceeded Harry’s expectations.

For his own part, before he’d stepped foot on the plane that delivered him to Kentucky, Harry had determined what it was that consumed him whenever he thought of blue eyes, adrenaline bright, of a quick smirk, that tempting, deliberate turn up, or of the scythe-sharp curve of a jaw he wanted to press his thumb and teeth to every evening of every day that remained to him.

Harry should have told Eggsy before leaving the room that afternoon, before closing the door, taking the steps to the taxi. Before he’d left Eggsy alone.

He should say it now, except there was this distance, miles of soft mattress and silence between them. He’d open his mouth only to find his tongue pinned down by words that had gathered over countless nights spent stretched out on his side, watching Eggsy’s back, denying the urge to skim unsteady fingertips over the tight clench of strong shoulders. All the while wondering if the young man slept, or if he only pretended to. Wondering what went wrong while running through possibilities, probabilities, until sunlight chased shadows across the sheet resting in place of Harry’s arm over Eggsy’s hip. 

For all the time he spent analyzing the suffocating tension, the reason for it eluded him. He was no closer to understanding why Eggsy pulled away, after, when their intimacy still burned their skin, when their breathing still sounded like a riot in the quiet of their bedroom.

Tucking his hand beneath the pillow, Harry sighed.

“‘Arry?”

His heart still, Harry pushed up on an elbow. “Yes?”

“What are we doin’?”

Harry’s breath lodged in his throat, blocking questions and entreaties alike.

“‘Cause whatever this is--” Eggsy shifted, turning his head on the pillow. “I can’t hardly bear it.”

“What?” Harry rasped, seizing the sheet in a tight fist.

“I’ve been tryin’, right, tellin’ myself that you...that what we’re doin’ is... _Fuck_ ,” Eggsy sobbed, shoving a knuckle between his teeth to quiet the sound.

Harry didn’t spare a moment to think, sliding across the bed, half tangled in cool sheets and fully tempted to tear them from their tucked-in mooring. “Eggsy.” The sight of Eggsy’s lashes, wet and sharply spiked, dark against the moonlit-pale of his skin, cut through Harry with the urgency of shrapnel. “Look at me.”

Eggsy notched his chin up before blinking his eyes open. He looked at the ceiling as though it were wide as the sky, swallowing convulsively. 

“Look at me,” Harry repeated softly, a plea rather than a command. 

“Yeah,” Eggsy whispered, “all right.” 

When he lowered them to meet Harry’s, Eggsy’s eyes were a beacon in the dark. Harry had clawed through the terrifying black of oblivion towards that light, heedless of pain and uncertainty. Perhaps it should have startled him, the lengths he would have gone to, his willingness to do absolutely anything necessary in order to see those star-bright eyes focused on him outside the realm of memory, to be able to stand before Eggsy and say what needed to be fucking said.

Harry opened his mouth, but Eggsy, his brow furrowed, his body wracked by a fine tremble, rushed to fill the tick of silence.

“I’m sick of these scraps you’re throwin’ me, Harry. If you’re fuckin’ me out of pity, I--”

Harry reared back. Disregarding rational thought and intention, he bit out, “I could say the same.” His chest rose, expanding to contain his ricocheting heartbeat. “I may be older than you, and if that’s what’s been troubling you to distraction, you might have said something--“

Eggsy shoved up, furiously shaking his head. “Your age don’t mean fuck all to me, never has.”

Pressed between Eggsy’s pursed lips was the truth of that statement. Harry conceded the point with a rapid flutter of lashes before he reached for another probability. “Then perhaps you think I’m damaged—“

“If you’re damaged, then I’m the tooth fairy or some other made up shit like that.” Glancing up at the scar on Harry’s forehead, Eggsy’s eyes lingered there as his fingers had the night they first collided, unutterably hungry for one another, covetous of every scrap of bare skin, of every groan and growl elicited by tongue and teeth and tug on sweat-streaked hair. Quietly, Eggsy said, “Some days I need the reminder you survived, that you’re—The scar’s right good for that. ‘Specially when you won’t touch me.”

“Won’t touch--Eggsy,” Harry murmured, leaning forward, close enough to feel his lover’s incendiary heat, “you have no idea how difficult it is to not reach for you at _every_ possible opportunity.”

Eggsy sniffed, blinking. “Seems like you found the trick of it all right.”

“Yes,” Harry agreed, “after decades of strict self-restraint training. Comes in handy when one must deny himself the thing he wants above all else.”

A hasty inhale choked Eggsy’s voice, “An’ by _thing_ , you mean--”

“You, Eggsy. I mean you.” 

“Then I _truly_ do not understand,” Eggsy said, “why it is I feel like I been sleepin’ alone these last few weeks. Why you smile when it’s Merlin or Roxy steppin’ in the room an’ look away when it’s me.” He drew his knees to his chest, holding on, his expression aching and earnest. “We come back ‘ere, and we make love, practically tearin’ each other apart to get closer, but once it’s done you...Well, I ain’t even an afterthought then, am I?” 

“I’ve made a mistake,” Harry admitted and flinched when the words registered, when he heard Eggsy’s breath hitch. Instinct demanded action, anything to erase the stricken lines curled around Eggsy’s mouth, to rub color back into his lover’s knuckles, blanched bone-white from tightening his grip on his forearm. His voice thick, Harry chose to press on, “You see, I knew before I left for Kentucky. I took one truth with me into that church, and I am here now because of it. I was remiss in not telling you sooner, when I stood a chance of you believing me--”

“Harry,” Eggsy murmured, unfolding his arms, easing closer, “if you’re about to say what I hope to fuckin’ god you’re gonna say, I’ll believe you.”

Pressing his hand to Eggsy’s cheek, Harry brushed his thumb along the bitten-red curve of Eggsy’s bottom lip. “I’m in love with you, irrevocably.”

Eggsy’s smile spread slowly, a flicker turned up to full, radiant light. “You love me.”

Harry nodded. “I believe that is what I said, yes.” He hesitated and then, “Do you--”

“Do I what?” Closing the distance, Eggsy guessed, “Want you?” He slid his leg over Harry’s thighs, rising above him on his knees. “Sometimes I can’t breathe ‘cause of it, like there ain’t enough room for anythin’ but you inside me.” Eggsy rolled his hips, settling into his seat. Harry groaned, low, rough, his fingers biting into Eggsy’s thighs. “But maybe you were askin’ if I need you.” Warm, slick lips grazed Harry’s temple before his lover pulled back. “I tried livin’ with your ghost once, didn’t like it. You do sumthin’ stupid like gettin’ shot again, and I swear, Harry, I’ll--” Eggsy surged forward, slanting his open mouth over Harry’s, thrusting shaking fingers through Harry’s hair. The kiss demanded proof of life and Harry gave it in ferocious measure, rocking up when Eggsy ground down. “Fuck,” Eggsy breathed, pressing Harry back, pinning him to the mattress. “I love you, Harry. Have since first sight.”

“If that’s the case,” Harry said, slipping a smile into the hollow of Eggsy’s throat, squeezing the bitable curve of his arse, “you could have said something sooner.”

Eggsy laughed, a soft, delighted sound. “Fuck you.”

“Hmm,” Harry hummed, “all right, but you first.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always most welcome! As are new friends on tumblr (shadowslament - that's me, waiting on someone who'll talk incessantly about Hartwin with me).


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